SG9663DC Rear Camera footage with Factory Tinted Rear Screen

[dougie175]

I have had my SG9663DC for almost 2 months and since installing life has been very hectic and I haven't really had much chance to review the footage as much as I would like.

On reviewing the footage the front camera is superb, the rear is a different matter, hopefully we can achieve much better results with a bit of tinkering if someone can help let me know what I have done wrong. I have a 2014 Audi A6 Avant Black Edition which has quite a dark factory tint on the rear windows and rear screen, as do a lot of cars so I am sure there must still be a way to achieve good rear footage, the problem is that it seems to give all the rear footage a very dark / blue colour, it is just about acceptable in a daytime but at night it renders the rear camera almost useless.

I had tried upping the exposure which does help but also has negative effects with over exposure, The front camera has an EV of +1.0 and the rear has +4/3 I imagine I could improve the rear in some situations by raising the EV even more but this isn't going to get away from the blueness that the rear tint is giving the footage.

Please see attached footage, which are just 10 second clips shot at the same time but the difference in camera image between front and back is huge, is there a way to get the rear camera looking somewhere near as good as the front or is the problem always going to be there because of the factory rear tint?

Dull Morning Front:

Dull Morning Rear:

Just gone dark front:

Just gone dark rear:

Obviously as the night gets darker the rear camera becomes pretty much useless, on an unlit road it is just black, I assume this is probably normal if I parked up on an unlit road with no lights on the front camera would produce far superb video to the rear.

Thanks for any help and advice anyone can offer.

 

[Nigel]

If you want the rear camera to be able to see in the dark then you will have to fit some headlights on the rear of your car!
Unfortunately that would be illegal.

Of course it would help to get rid of the tint, both for night and day.

 

[dougie175]

If you want the rear camera to be able to see in the dark then you will have to fit some headlights on the rear of your car!
Unfortunately that would be illegal.

Of course it would help to get rid of the tint, both for night and day.

Its not so much seeing in the dark without headlights, the street lights and other headlights should provide enough illumination. I should probably have been more clear the footage about has only just started to go dark as you can see from the front camera its only dusk far from being dark yet, from other people footage I have seen the rear camera should still produce great images at this level of light

As already mentioned this is factory tinted glass not some aftermarket film that can be removed, as with a lot of premium and even none premium vehicles these days the rear glass is tinted from factory

 

[Nigel]

As already mentioned this is factory tinted glass not some aftermarket film that can be removed, as with a lot of premium and even none premium vehicles these days the rear glass is tinted from factory

You can swap the rear glass for one from a base model which doesn't have the rear tint, would give you a much better image night and day, would help your eyes too!

Note that that camera does only have an IMX 232 at the back, the Viofo A129 with IMX291 front and back would do significantly better at the rear, but even that can't see without light and having headlights at the front does make it much easier for the front camera at night.

 

[DT MI]

Could very well be the window tint but those rear videos remind me of some I've seen where the protective film was left on the camera lens. My previous Cadillac had window tint as dark as I've seen on any vehicle but never any hint of blue.

 

[dougie175]

You can swap the rear glass for one from a base model which doesn't have the rear tint, would give you a much better image night and day, would help your eyes too!

Note that that camera does only have an IMX 232 at the back, the Viofo A129 with IMX291 front and back would do significantly better at the rear, but even that can't see without light and having headlights at the front does make it much easier for the front camera at night.

Lets be honest even as the manager of an Audi approved bodyshop, I'm not going to the extreme of fitting a base model rear glass that doesn't match the rest of the vehicle comes at substantial cost, often the rear glass serves other purposes such as aerials (I don't think it does on my car but that's not the point), just replacing glass isn't always an option and a bit extreme to allow a camera to see out the rear. Surely there must be plenty of others out there using front and back dash cams with a factory tinted rear glass?

As for my eyes I'm only 32 so seeing out the rear day or night is never an issue, the tint is far from limo black or anything silly that people put on in the aftermarket scene, I can honestly say inside the car you would sturggle to say that the rear glass is tinted.

Again as mentioned above I am not expecting the camera to see in the dark just use the light already available

 

[dougie175]

Could very well be the window tint but those rear videos remind me of some I've seen where the protective film was left on the camera lens. My previous Cadillac had window tint as dark as I've seen on any vehicle but never any hint of blue.

Top marks this man, when the rear camera was installed the blue lens protector has been left on, just went and checked after your reply. My little girl is tucked up in bed so can't go out for a drive but will review the footage again tomorrow evening but I imagine you've hit the nail on the head there mate thanks. Much easier that cutting my rear screen out too hehe!

 

[DT MI]

Don't expect there to be a miraculous improvement other than the blue removal. Rear camera video is a bit dicey after dark 'cause if there's no light there's nothing to record. Here's a clip from my rear cam (IMX323, same as yours) installed in my Acura RDX with a CPL fitted to the lens. Kind of long but I was looking for a segment that had multiple types of 'marginal' lighting. (Rear window is embarrassingly dirty.)

 

[jokiin]

CPL on the rear will cut the light down a bit also

 

[DT MI]

CPL on the rear will cut the light down a bit also

That it does. I installed it because I found it really reduces the glare on the windshield (windscreen) of the vehicle behind me - very easy to see them using their cell phones, eating, brushing teeth, etc. Just one of the many choices we have to make.

 

[kamkar]

In my rear camera driving on a highway at night i see pretty much nothing, as one would expect as there are no ambient light.
But as son as i flip on the rear fog light or drag my brake so the brake light some on, then i do see a little bit, but it is of course just a reddish tinted blur as i am moving at 80 km/h and the red light in the rear are pretty weak compared to the white light in the front of the car.
Really a rear camera are of little use in such situations, so thank god the front camera have my own driving logged pretty good in relation to the road side / road markings that can be clearly see in that footage.

CPL on the rear camera are indeed a must have.

 

[jokiin]

In my rear camera driving on a highway at night i see pretty much nothing, as one would expect as there are no ambient light.
But as son as i flip on the rear fog light or drag my brake so the brake light some on, then i do see a little bit, but it is of course just a reddish tinted blur as i am moving at 80 km/h and the red light in the rear are pretty weak compared to the white light in the front of the car.
Really a rear camera are of little use in such situations, so thank god the front camera have my own driving logged pretty good in relation to the road side / road markings that can be clearly see in that footage.

reality is if it's a dark road and there's nothing behind you then it's of little interest anyway, if a car comes behind you then you have lighting

 

[kamkar]

Yeah they do give them self away if they are driving erratic or have problems with lane placement due to them being on the phone.
I feel pretty safe that with my cameras and that i will not be the one ending up with the blame for something i dident do, which are also the main reason i got into dashcams.
But actually more related to cyclists then, cuz touching one of them or a pedestrian with my car can easy result in me having to undergo driving test again, and i dont want to do that due to the way those individuals often conduct them self in traffic.

 

[country_hick]

reality is if it's a dark road and there's nothing behind you then it's of little interest anyway, if a car comes behind you then you have lighting

Would putting the rear window cam on motion detection alone be a good idea for this reason?

 

[TonyM]

Would putting the rear window cam on motion detection alone be a good idea for this reason?

No reason to stop recording just because it's dark back there. Better to have it always-on so it's ready for whatever happens.

 

[dougie175]

To follow up on this a direct comparison between the rear camera with the protective film that was never designed to be left in place and 1 with it removed! The difference it considerable!

The first film is 10 seconds from yesterday (before the film was removed) the second film is as close as I could get it the same 10 seconds today at roughly the same time in the morning on the same stretch of road. The difference is very noticeable!

With protective film still in place:

Without film still in place:

I will get a film night time films to compare but I think its pretty obvious that the protective film really impede the video and the tinted window has much less of an impact.

 

[dougie175]

Now the next issue I seem to be facing is the camera suddenly making small videos in the middle of filming, the image below probably describes better that words, any ideas what is causing this issue, looking at the videos there are quite large segments of video missing between the camera finishing 1 of the videos and starting the next.

When it records for the full length 5 minute videos it doesn't miss any of the video, but when it starts to go fully and make small files bits of video are missing which worries me a bit

 

[jokiin]

what firmware version are you on?

 

[dougie175]

That it does. I installed it because I found it really reduces the glare on the windshield (windscreen) of the vehicle behind me - very easy to see them using their cell phones, eating, brushing teeth, etc. Just one of the many choices we have to make.

This is very interesting as looking at my footage from the rear unless there are a lot of trees hanging over you can't see past the screen it just reflects a lot of light, are we saying a CPL on the rear would improve this? I appreciate it will make the footage even darker but would be interested to try one.

 

[jokiin]

I appreciate it will make the footage even darker but would be interested to try one.

you could easily test by just taking the CPL off the front and putting it on the rear for a while and see how it looks